12 Games For Christmas - Game #3

Game #3 - Red Faction Guerrilla (PS3/360/PC) 

June 2009 might as well be known as the month where Sandbox games reigned supreme. Why? Because three somewhat remarkably sandbox games were released onto the market. You’ve got Sony’s infamous, which was a good, though flawed attempt. You then have Activision’s Prototype, which wasn’t very good at all. And then you come to THQ’s Red Faction Guerilla, which is probably the more interesting of the trio, for several reasons.  For starters, there’s no need for superpowers – though the sledgehammer you get for the duration of the game is pretty damned super.

The first part is that it’s an interesting reboot of the Red Faction series.  While the first two were somewhat decent first person shooters that never really did take too much advantage of the Geo-Mod  feature that made it a big deal back in the day, here the Geo-Mod engine actually works to the games advantage. Destroying buildings and objects has an extremely large part to do in the game, and it never gets old. Never. And it’s not the stock standard video game destruction here – tearing down buildings in specific places does affect how the building will fall over, so if you hit the supports just right, you’ll have a much easier time taking the building than just randomly attempting to destroy the building. Or you could just drive a car into the building and use that to destroy it.

The second part is just the way the game feels. As an open world game, it compares very similarly to developer Volition’s own Saints Row series, but improved in some regards. For starters, the ‘respect’ system where you needed to consistently fill up a respect bar (by doing activities) in order to attempt any missions? Not present. As long as there are missions available to you, you need nothing more to actually do them, with the last missions appearing as you drain control away from the evil EDF. You can do the activities still, and some of them you can do repeatedly to earn more salvage (the games currency) and get closer to achieving some trophies or achievements.

That being said, there are some elements of the game that don’t quite work well in its favor. The first comes in the mission triggers – there’s an alert system in the game where green means you’re alright, yellow means that the EDF are onto you, and red meaning that the EDF are going to kill you. All well and good, but if you’re driving out to go do missions, you need to have a green alert to do them. It’s a pain, especially when it’s tricky to shake off the EDF at times. Furthermore, the difficulty becomes absolutely punishing at times, which really does hurt the game some.

Overall, Red Faction Guerilla is a fantastic return to form for the Red Faction series (RF2 wasn’t quite good), with the reboot working to create one of the most fun experiences you’ll have in a video game. Sure, it’s quite derivivative of Saints Row 2, but then again, is that really a bad thing? And also, it does get quite difficult at times, but that’s put aside when you watch as you take down a massive building with nothing more than a sledgehammer and remote charges. Quite something.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #2

2. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS/PSP/iPhone)

I’ll be quite frank with you. I really didn’t like Grand Theft Auto IV. Sure, there were some impressive things about it (such as the voice acting and the way that the game felt), but for me anyway, that was more outweighed by the bad (mission design wasn’t up to scratch, soundtrack was very hit and miss, visuals were boring, police spawning was erratic and almost unfair, and the story wasn’t too particularly great). In fact, the best GTA in recent years is a PSP and DS (and soon to be iPhone) game – Chinatown Wars. And it’s amazing that it didn’t sell – given that GTA is such a mainstream game, and that the DS is so absurdly popular. In the US in it’s first month, the game sold less than 100K. Depressing.

The first thing that strikes you about Chinatown Wars is that it takes you back to a pre-GTA III era of gaming, but mixed in with some of the elements from later GTA games (such as the ability to use taxi-cabs and stuff like that). The second thing that strikes you is that it WORKS. Unlike the previous attempt at a GTA game on a Nintendo handheld, everything here just seems to work a lot better – from the multiplayer, to car control and just control in general. Hell, even the touchscreen specific stuff (for the DS version), actually works really well, even if some of it can be a little cumbersome.

Probably the most compelling thing about the game would have to be the drug trading mini-game. Put simply, it plays similar to the Drug Wars game that people have known and loved for many years, you buy low and sell high, control supply and demand, and just proves to be really quite fun. And hey, having it not edited for the Australian release was quite something. Plus, it’s easily the best way to get cash in the game, because you really don’t get paid enough for actually completing missions.

That being said, the game isn’t quite right. For starters, ticking off the cops is way too easy in this game than in previous GTA games, if only because there are cops EVERYWHERE, and touching them is really simple. The music is also an issue...It’s just not great stuff. While it is all licensed music, good luck knowing any of it. Furthermore, the combat’s a little iffy, but then again, it’s always been an issue with GTA. Oh, and there are still some niggles that make the combat still not quite right, but better than in past GTA’s.

Otherwise, it’s a fantastic experience and one that needs to be sampled on any platform. It’s a really enjoyable, if not flawed, GTA game.